Alibaba is in talks to deposit in Uber’s Southeast Asia opposition Grab

Alibaba could almost boost a business interests in Southeast Asia with an investment in Uber opposition Grab.

Bloomberg reports that Alibaba President Jack Ma is deliberation fasten an arriving $1.4 billion appropriation turn for Grab that will be led by SoftBank, a association with many links to Alibaba. Separately, TechCrunch has reliable with a source that Alibaba has hold meetings with Grab over a intensity investment that could see Alipay, a mobile remuneration use run by Alibaba associate Ant Financial, integrated into a Grab app. Alibaba is apparently penetrating to have a closer attribute with Grab’s ‘GrabPay’ remuneration platform, too.

Grab declined to comment. Alibaba did not respond to a ask for comment.

Singapore-based Grab’s many new appropriation was a $750 million Series F during a gratefulness of $3 billion in Sep 2016. The company, that only incited five, claims 45 million downloads, over 900,000 drivers and 2.5 million daily rides opposite 7 countries.

It isn’t nonetheless transparent either an investment would come from Alibaba or Ant Financial — both have bustling brokering deals to get an early foothold in Southeast Asia’s flourishing internet space. Alibaba has infancy tenure of Southeast Asia-based e-commerce organisation Lazada, while Ant Financial has struck deals with finance-focused companies Ascend Money (Thailand) and Mynt (Philippines) in a region, and it set adult a joint-venture to offer financial services in Indonesia.

Alibaba’s seductiveness in Grab is another pointer that it and arch opposition Tencent are formulating new rivalries in Southeast Asia, a segment where a internet economy is sloping to swell to $200 billion per year over a subsequent decade, and other tools of Asia.

We reported that final month that Tencent has finalized a understanding that will see it lead a $1.2 billion investment in Go-Jek, a startup rivaling Uber and Grab in Indonesia. Sources tighten to a understanding told us that Alibaba and Ant Financial had been talks with a association though eventually Tencent prevailed. Go-Jek has not announced a new financing yet.

The adversary is some-more strident in India, where Tencent corroborated homegrown Amazon opposition Flipkart in a appropriation turn that enclosed appearance from Microsoft and eBay. Meanwhile, Alibaba has picked remuneration and e-commerce organisation Paytm as a substitute in a country.

Both Alibaba and Ant Financial done countless investments in a organisation before to SoftBank pumping a large $1.4 billion investment into Paytm final month. Given their impasse in Paytm, it isn’t a outrageous warn that these 3 names are in a brew for Grab.